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Hive is warming right now

Is there anyway to stop a swarm inprogress??
I caught a hive just gearing up to swarm. There are thousands of bees in the air
right now. And it looks like they have picked a nearby cedar tree to rest. But, it
is 20 feet in the air. No ladder here tall enough to do anything about it.

Lots of room left in the hive so no idea why they swarmed. They did backfill a bunch of
the brood nest with nectar. But I didn't spot that in time I guess.

Re: Hive is warming right now

If they're hanging from a branch as opposed to clinging to the trunk of the tree a 5 gallon bucket on a really long pole has worked for me in the past... If you have access to any ladder and a 12' poles you may be able to set some drawn comb on a branch close by and that may do the trick too.

Re: Hive is warming right now

Thanks all, but they are gone now.
I figured I wud use the extra queen cells and break the hive up into nucs to keep them from swarming again.
So I went to my shop and built 2 nuc boxes, caught me unprepared..;oWhen I came back
to the tree they were gone. Total time was 2 hours from swarm to gone..ggggrr
I had left this hive alone for 2 weeks hoping they wud draw out all the comb in the second deep I put on.
Well, they just stayed in the lower deep, back filled the brood nest with nectar and took off all in 2 weeks.
I guess I better go back to inspections every 9 or 10 days for a while with all this nectar and pollen coming in.
This is a heck of a flow going on here!